13 Reality TV Hoaxes You Totally Fell For

You thought what you were watching on reality television was 100% real, only to later learn the devastating truth.

We've all been there. And now we can all be here: relive the most shocking reality TV show hoaxes in history below…

1. Dance Moms

We’ll just let Maddie Ziegler, arguably the show’s top performer, lay it right out for you, courtesy of an interview with USA Today: “The producers set it up to make us all yell at each other. You know how I said that moms do fight? The moms have a fake fight sometimes. Afterward they just start talking and laugh about it.” Host Abby Lee Miller really does suck, however. that’s not fake.

2. House Hunters

Bobi Jensen blogged in 2012, on a site titled “Hooked on Houses,” that her experience on House Hunter was totally contrived. Turns out, the couple had selected its home prior to appearing on the show and producers even changed Jensen’s story over why she was moving.

3. Breaking Amish

Can we change the title of this TLC series to “Having Already Broken Amish?” After the very first episode aired, it came out that most participants had already left their Amish family for the bright lights of the big city.

4. Storage Wars

Dave Hester, a prominent presence on A&E’s Storage Wars, left production and sued the network over the phony aspects of the show. He said producers loaded units up with items to give each episode an artificial angle and that they even funneled money to teams to keep each episode’s bidding competitive.

5. Ghost Adventures

Ghost Adventures star Aaron Goodwin was fired in 2014 after he stopped by the podcast Are We Alone and explained how the network staged reactions, sound effects and other aspects of the program. He said it was “sickening” that he was part of such a “fraud.”

6. The Hills

Lauren Conrad, Brody Jenner and other cast members have come out and said pretty much everything you saw on this MTV reality show as scripted. Shocking, we know!